I don't know where to post this question, maybe here someone has faced the same problem in the past and could give me some good ideas.
I have to ship products with a different 32-bits serial number saved in a non-volatile memory (actually it's the internal EEPROM of AVR microcontrollers). Of course, I have to be sure to avoid two identical numbers in different devices.
I was thinking to a server-side application that is responsible to find and release a new serial number. The programming process started on a client PC should be:
- acquire a *new* (and never used) serial number from a server on the same LAN;
- generate the programming file for the memory (.bin, .hex, .eep, ...);
- program the memory;
- give positive/negative feedback to the server;
- in case of positive feedback the server should definitevely allocate the serial number saving it in a simple database with some useful info (date and time when the serial number was allocated, type of embedded device, ...)
I know I can write some code (scripts or other) for the server side and client side applications, but I was wondering if there's a ready solution to use for my needs.
The separation between server and client could be useful if the PC used for programming the device is far from the server (the database with serial numbers will be very important) and/or there are many PCs dedicated to programming.
For my skills, the server side application is more difficult.
Any ideas?